This past Tuesday I grabbed a shovel and headed into the back yard to address some of the difficult issues dog owners face when the thaw begins and it becomes horribly evident that Fido has not been telling the whole truth about his business dealings. I should have suspected that story about desperate, out-of-work squirrels acting as personal valets was a mere fantasy. I chose to believe it because it made my life easier. Temporarily.

Walking with grim determination down a south-facing hill that the sun had cleared of snow, I stepped on a patch of brown grass that turned out to be covered with ice. As gravity took over I felt a tearing sensation in one of the major muscles of my left leg. I’ll spare you the spluttering and thrashing around and the Biblical oaths that followed. The result is that I can’t drive my car because I can’t lift up the foot that operates the clutch. I am suddenly impaired, but feeling lucky. I might have hit my head or fallen on the shovel, or toppled into the area that the dog has been decorating for the past three months with … well, let’s just say it could have been worse.

Yesterday my dear wife was kind enough to give me a ride to the doctor, but then she had to go to work and I undertook my errands by hobbling from one city bus to the next. It opened my eyes to part of a public transportation system that I had overlooked – namely, the part where I climb on and use it. I went from Shoreview to Rosedale to the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul Campus, then to the Minneapolis campus, downtown Minneapolis and back to the northern suburbs. It all went smoothly and just as the Metro Transit website had predicted. The only drawback was my sudden inability to hurry from one thing to the next.

It was a pleasant surprise to be forced to take things very slowly. The weather was fine. There was plenty to watch. At one point I had to kill 40 minutes at the central library in downtown Minneapolis. Was that a problem? Yes, the bus came too soon. Next time I’ll try to arrange it so I have to waste a couple of hours. And then there was the U of M stop where I felt compelled to fill the interlude with a cup of coffee and an apple fritter. The wait was no problem but the fritter was about 30% too big. I should have shared the extra chunk with the campus squirrels, but a misunderstanding about squirrels and chunks had gotten me into this situation in the first place.

In between rides I got from place to place the way Marty Feldman did when he played Igor in Young Frankenstein. Remember when he said “Walk this way”? That was me, minus the hump.

When have circumstances forced you to slow it down?

Here’s the latest angst-ridden message from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.
I think the dark days of late January are starting to get to him.

Hey Mr. C.,

I’m wondering if it’s possible to erase blog posts forever.

The last time I wrote I admitted that I was kinda sick of being held back as a high school sophomore over and over and over again. After all, it’s been twenty-five years! But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I kinda wanna take that back.

When I started at Wendell Wilkie High School, holding the same job for a quarter of a century was the sort of thing a guy could be proud of, so I started boasting about it. I figured maybe I’d get a gold pocket watch for loyal service, but then I found out nobody gets a pocket watch anymore. Modern pockets are full of cell phones and iPods. Who needs a watch? Besides, people aren’t impressed if you stick around the same place for a long time. They want to know what’s wrong with you!

So one idea I had was that I could go backwards instead … back to the 4th grade, where I heard some schools were giving the kids free iPads! I could really enjoy being nine years old again with a deal like that. But now there’s all this fuss over a new book – Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – where this one mom talks about how super-tough she was with her kids, forcing them to skip meals to practice the piano, forbidding sleepovers, and threatening to burn their stuffed animals if they didn’t work harder.

Some people are real upset over it and others think maybe she’s on to something. The first group says every kid needs to have fun and be social in order to grow. The second group just has a problem with stuffed animals, I guess. It’s a real loud argument, and I’m not sure who’s right. I don’t think I could take the pressure of either approach, frankly. It gives me a tummy ache to think about being in fourth grade again.

So then I started thinking maybe it was time at last to start moving forward. But now there’s this new study that says it’s more stressful than ever to be a college freshman and things are just getting worse at that level. Today’s college students have to deal with all sorts of upsetting things – unemployed parents, tuition debt and poor job prospects – not to mention the every day social pressure to keep your Facebook posts upbeat and your Twitter feed funny. It gives me a rash to think about being in college.

I guess what I’m saying is that the second year of high school is the perfect place for me. I feel way too old to be shaped for the future and way too young to be burdened with it. You could say I’m in the sweet spot, age-wise!

So could you delete that post from earlier this month where I said I wanted to move on? And then could you delete this one too? I’m trying to cover my tracks so I can stay invisible for another twenty-five years!

Your friend,
Bubby

I’m not sure how to tell Bubby this, but our digital trail may be even more lasting than dinosaur bones or newspapers preserved in a landfill. The thoughts he expressed about wanting to stop being a perennial sophomore aren’t going away. I’m afraid his only hope is that his awkward confession will be as hard to find as a specific tree in the forest of words that is the Internet. That, and continuing to fail 10th grade algebra, may keep him safe.

What is the best age to be in 2011?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

The roof on the storage shed out back collapsed this winter from the weight of the snow, and the structure is unusable. The thing has always been an eyesore, and now that it’s damaged a debate has started about its real value. I admit there are benefits. We throw all the sports equipment in there and it helps make everything nice and tidy in our garage.

Our kids and the others in the neighborhood get a lot of use out of the thing, too. They’re always playing one sort of game or another in it or around it. I stopped paying attention but it seems like the door is standing open half the time and some little urchin is crouched in there, ready to pounce on someone. Usually the game has something to do with winning a championship or being a loud, bossy millionaire. Occasionally you hear some shouts floating across the yard about “MONSTER TRUCKS”!

But since the collapse I’ve had to wrap the shed in police tape and tell them to STAY OUT because the roof is unsafe. Long faces all around.

My wife thinks we should tear down the shed and replace it with something even bigger and nicer with expensive bells and whistles so it can be even more fun for the children and their games, but I’m thinking we should let the place fall in on itself like an old barn on an abandoned farmstead. Yes, it would be traumatic for the children to watch that happen, but it would remind them that games are just games and maybe it would instill in them a kind of gravitas that, frankly, they’re lacking. An air of melancholy and resignation about the inevitability of death and decay can be a useful thing for a young person. They’re not all going to be sports stars, you know. Some might become independent filmmakers.

Besides, we’re out of money.

Dr. Babooner, please tell me I’m right about how this dispute should play out. I took the time to write to you, after all, and my wife and the kids never read your column. You won’t gain a thing by siding with them. Give a loyal reader a bit of support, and I promise to keep coming back for advice that makes me feel smart!

Sincerely,
Seeking Validation

I told Seeking Validation that humans are able to develop an air of melancholy and resignation without intentional assistance from anyone else, and it’s mean spirited to try to build gravitas into another life just because you can.

Besides, watching something collapse is a terrible downer

The money question is a serious one, though, and rather than simply accept decay of the backyard shed, perhaps you and your wife and the local children could work together on weekends to repair the roof and improve the structure so it can still be a fun and useful neighborhood attraction. Like Amish people would, but without the horses and hats. It may not be the best solution, but it suits the situation.

And Dr. Babooner can’t be blackmailed with threats of withdrawing your attention. Your attention is a mixed blessing – look at me! The lovely pearls are merely window dressing to cover my own inner pain. Your flip comment about “long faces” hurt in ways I can’t even begin to describe, so don’t get me started on gravitas!

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

People sometimes politely ask “how’s it going”, meaning, “are you finding any work”?
I always feel like I’m letting them down when I say “not really”, so it’s nice to have something tangible to point to every now and then. I’ve managed to complete a couple of freelance projects, which are now housed at different places online.

The Line, an online magazine, posted this article I wrote about the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory – a highly prestigious research facility on the Mississippi River. I was happy to get this assignment, as I have a lot of admiration for scientists. We media people tend to think we’re pretty important but it’s the careful peer-reviewed work going on in laboratories all over the world that will have real meaning over time, while radio and TV programs, magazine articles and yes, blogs, will fade away very, very quickly.

The first time through, I wrote the article as a straight-ahead bit of reporting with a rather neutral and somewhat distant sounding “voice”. As I re-read my work, it seemed a bit dry. So on a lark I wrote a second version with a more casual, smart alecky, non-scientific style of narration, and submitted them both. Guess which one the editor chose?

There’s a strong chance that no responsible scientist will ever speak to me again.

The other project was a half hour radio profile of one of my favorite local music groups – The Brass Kings. I put this piece together for a fine community station, KFAI. In my previous professional life, (spent under the wing of a large, very polished media organization), whenever I needed recording equipment I merely had to ask and something that was state-of-the-art and in flawless condition would quickly be provided. This time I had to go out and buy a digital audio recorder and teach myself how to use it. As anyone I’ve interviewed can tell you, I’m still learning.

I also had to find a way to edit the work on my home computer using something other than the very expensive and temperamental “industry standard” sound mixing program – Pro Tools. I found one that was available for free – a really useful and effective program from Denmark called Hindenburg. Again, it took some learning with more confusion yet to come, but I think it turned out all right.

You can hear the result here.

I’ve picked up a few tricks and met some very nice folks over the past few months, but it is just beginning to dawn on me how hard people have to work when they are living from project to project. Patience, faith and persistence are three necessities in any freelancer’s toolbox.

What is your most marketable talent?

A new dispatch has arrived from sensation loving, factually impaired journalist Bud Buck, as he attempts to capitalize on the latest headlines.

Midwestern Crime Families Remain Untouched By Federal Probe
By Bud Buck

Yesterday’s FBI roundup of New York and New Jersey crime families has sent shockwaves through national syndicates of biologically related people who engage in illegal activities, but so far the ruthless crime families of the American Midwest are untouched by this latest probe.

“Are we looking over our shoulders?” asks a source who demanded that he remain unidentified, and is definitely not Joey Erickson of Shoreview, Minnesota.

“Sure,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Always.”

The Erickson crime family is reputed to be a major player in the following areas:

* Cartnapping (The reckless use and subsequent abandonment of grocery story carts outside cart corrals)

* Transfer Laundering (Illegal exchange of unexpired bus transfers to riders who are not the initial recipients of those transfers)

* Yard Waste Embezzlement (Systematic, secret disposal of organics in improper trash containers)

* Library Book Racketeering

The “godfather” of the Erickson syndicate, Duane Erickson, is said to run the book racket using a network of “lieutenants” who approach people at local libraries and offer substantial cash payments to “sublet” the books they have already withdrawn on their personal library cards. Once the “mark” is enlisted in the “program”, the return of these “sublet” books is refused until tributes are paid or illegal activities are conducted. Failure to comply with the mob’s demands can lead to the destruction of previously spotless personal reputations, the accumulation of vast library fines, and even the complete loss of one’s library card.

Anguish and despair are often the lot of those who become enmeshed in the Erickson crime family’s web of deceit, and yet federal and state authorities continue to do nothing while spending their time and precious resources attacking the same old suspects in New York and New Jersey.

When will law enforcement get serious about the true extent of organized crime? Time will tell!

This is Bud Buck!

I think Bud is in love with the whole mob movie genre and would like to be a Godfather, although I personally can’t think of anything that would be less fun than having to follow the rules, take the risks and live with the uncertainty of being a member of a crime “family”. I guess that means I’d be the kind of sniveling wimp who gets bumped off in the first ten minutes.

If you were in a mobster movie, what sort of character would you play?